What an Entrance

While my personal tastes are a little more traditional for a ceremony, this video is great. They definitely worked hard and it paid off.

Talk about having fun and putting your personality into your wedding.

Enjoy.

Happy New Year Jon and Tara

Happy New Year!

I had a wonderful New Year's Eve. I had the pleasure of working with a wonderful couple I have known for a long time, Jon and Tara. The Newlyweds chose the Keller Convention Center in Effingham, IL to host their wedding and reception. The place looked gorgeous.

Tara and Jon shared their first dance to "Wonderful Tonight." It was fun to watch as they smiled, laughed, and talked to each other the entire time. It was clear, for the two of them, there was no one else in the room.

Once all of their friends and family enjoyed time reminiscing, it was time to dance, party, and celebrate.

A New Years countdown, led by Jon and Tara, followed by Auld Lang Syne and......

the midnight kiss.

Sadly, the celebration had to come to a close. I actually think we could have continued the reception until 4:00 in the morning. (a few guests actually might have.)

Congrats to you both. It was truly an honor.

Personalized table numbers

Sometimes, it is the small, intimate details that can set your wedding apart from others. One example of turning something that is rather boring into a great, personal touch is table numbering.



Instead of using the standard numbering as shown above, what if you added your personality to the table.




Is there any question that the table numbers from Jen and Josh's August wedding fit their color scheme and personalities? They are both super fun and colorful people.

Here is another great example of personalized table numbers.










What if you did not use numbers at all?

I have worked weddings where the couples used pictures that helped to tell their personal stories. Maybe a pic from where they met, their first date location, where he proposed, where they shared their first kiss, etc.

You would be amazed at the buzz in the room when you release the "giant ferris wheel" table. (Yes, he got down on a knee at the top of the ferris wheel in Chicago.)










I would like to thank Karin and Roger with Starry-eyed Studios for use of their pictures from Jen and Josh's wedding. They do a wonderful job, but most of all, truly care about the couples they work for.

Here is a link to their blog about Jen and Josh's wedding.

Here is a link to Starry-eyed Studios web page.

Let's talk dinner music

Dinner music has quickly become one of my favorite items to personalize.

Let's first compare dinner music and cocktail music.

Cocktail music is the background tunes used usually before the guests of honor arrive. Quite often, the bride and groom, as well as their wedding party and parents, will arrive late due to pictures. The guests have already arrived at the reception hall and they are enjoying cocktails (hence the name "cocktail music.")

While I am not much of a traditionalist, I love when my couples use "the standards" for cocktail music. I have always felt the room just has a little more of a wedding feel when you are listening to Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, etc.

Dinner music is different. Dinner music is played during.........dinner. (boy, I am quite skilled at explaining this)

A few years ago, I had the privilege of helping a wonderful couple celebrate their marriage, Justin and Ashlee. Justin and Ashlee had a funny disagreement as to what type of music should be played for their wedding dance. Justin thought the dance should primarily be one genre, while Ashlee did not want Justin's assistance on the dance.

They came up with a wonderful compromise. Justin worked on the dinner music; Ashlee worked on the dance.

This is an example of what Justin came up with.

While quite the extreme, and not what most couples would want, the dinner music fit them perfectly. You could actually feel the energy in the room build during dinner as we started with power ballads and built to heavy, 80's long-haired rock.

Since that night, I have been encouraging clients to assist me with songs and styles for their dinner music. It allows your guests to get to know more about you, and the music is the soundtrack for your reception.

Justin and Ashlee did not realize it that night, but they have helped make other couples receptions better. Whether country songs, songs from your high school days, or even 80's rock, find out what fits for you and let your personalities shine.

Welcome

Welcome to Jon Wright Entertainment’s blog. I am Jon and I am glad you stopped by.

I have two main purposes behind my blog.

1. I want to share wedding information and ideas with you. The possibilities are truly endless for wedding receptions and we will explore your options.

2. I want you to get to know some of the wonderful couples I get to work with every weekend. They are all fantastic people with unique tastes. They all have a wonderful story, and I will share some of their stories here.

Disclaimer: Not all of the ideas I show you, will work for you. My goal is for you to comb through the different ideas and find something that will work for your wedding/reception. You may find an idea you like, but want to change it to match your personality. Ultimately, I hope you enjoy your time here and it can help you to have a fabulous wedding reception.

I will conclude my first blog with a little about me. I have been a DJ/MC at wedding receptions for the past 12 years. About 6 years ago, I started to realize I could do more than just play music. I could help brides and grooms have more than an average wedding reception. In time, I began to base almost everything about a reception on 3 things, “Fun, Personalized, and Memorable.” By sitting down and getting to know a couple, we could come up with unique ideas that would make their reception great.

Now, it requires hard work on both of our parts to accomplish this, but the end result is well worth it. I hope by reading my blog, you will get to see the end results and use them to help you have a “Fun, Personalized, and Memorable” wedding reception as well.

If you have any questions, let me know and I will do my best to answer them.


Jon